


Half-caf double-vanilla

by pianoforeplay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pianoforeplay/pseuds/pianoforeplay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sam doesn't like coffee. And then he does. And then it's different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half-caf double-vanilla

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the silverbullets prompt of: _"too much fate, not enough coffee"_ and initially posted [here](http://pianoforeplay.livejournal.com/47369.html) on 4/07/2011.

Sam wasn't much of a coffee drinker before Stanford. Dean can still remember when Sam took his first taste of the stuff at five years old. They were somewhere out east, in Tennessee or Kentucky or maybe Virginia, and Sam kept begging, squirming irritably at Dean's side before Dad finally sighed and slid the cup across the Formica table.

"Careful, it's hot," he said as Sam wrapped his stubby little hands around the mug. "Go slow."

And Sam did, leaning forward as far as his small body could manage, lips tentatively brushing the rim as he took a small, delicate taste.

Dean was nine at the time and he'd had coffee before. He awaited his brother's reaction with delighted anticipation that was immediately rewarded when Sammy yanked himself back, face pulled into a grimace, his whole body shuddering.

"Yuck!" Sam declared as Dad grinned and Dean laughed. "Coffee is gross!"

Dad just took another sip and Dean teased Sammy for a week, imitating the face he'd made over and over and over again as Sam huffed and sulked next to him in the backseat.

Dean wasn't much of a coffee drinker himself until he hit his teens. But one day he couldn't care less about the stuff and the next, he was doubling the batch he made for Dad every morning. It wasn't the best tasting stuff ever, but it helped jolt his system into thinking it was awake enough to handle the day and that's all Dean really needed.

He doesn't remember when he started actually liking the taste. That just kind of happened naturally. He takes it black now, likes the bitter shock of it on his tongue and down his throat, no frilly dressing to cover it up. It somehow feels more honest that way.

Sam eventually tried coffee again when he got older, but he never took to it like Dean. Instead, he always started his day with a monster glass of orange juice if they happened to have some, but liked milk well enough if they didn't. And there was the occasional Pepsi, of course. But not really coffee.

Dean teased him for it sometimes, whipping out Sam's comically horrified expression from all those years ago and flailing his arms, which Sam hadn't actually done at the time, but Dean figured he could chalk up to dramatic license.

"Grow up," Sam would say, rolling his eyes and Dean would just grin around another sip, feeling oddly smug about the whole thing.

It wasn't a big deal at all, just another little detail Dean knew about Sam to stand right along with the million or so others. It wasn't any more or less important than Sam preferring his eggs scrambled or his meat medium-well or his fountain soda with little to no ice. Sam just didn't like coffee.

And then he left for four years and that apparently changed.

It's a ridiculous thing to dwell on and Dean knows it, but as he watches Sam blow across the opened lid of his latte (seriously, a fucking latte?) before taking a delicate, tentative sip, he can't help it. It's just yet another thing about Sam that's changed, another way he's drifted into being this other guy that sort of resembles the little kid Dean helped raise, but somehow isn't fully _him_.

"What?" Sam asks, brow furrowed.

Dean blinks, belatedly realizing he's possibly been staring for awhile.

Sam runs a hand across his face like he's searching for a crumb stuck to his cheek and Dean shakes his head before scowling down at his own cup of coffee. It's dark and murky and still hot to the touch as he brings it to his lips.

There are very few things Dean is absolutely particular about and coffee isn't one of them. As long as it's black, strong and hot, he really doesn't care where it comes from and how he gets it. Starbucks, McDonald's, gas stations, diners, the little Ma and Pa shop down the road, he doesn't care.

Somehow it's completely unsurprising that Sam is the exact opposite.

"How can you drink that?" Sam asks, nose wrinkled as Dean pops the lid off his morning cup and breathes in the sweet, sweet aroma.

Grunting, Dean glances to the passenger seat. Sam twists off the cap of his V-8, the small bottle looking even smaller in his brother's enormous hand. Dean raises an eyebrow. "Could ask you the same thing."

"That crap is sludge."

Dean flashes a grin and then downs a quick, hot gulp. "And some mighty fine sludge it is."

Surprisingly, he actually gets a smile for that one, though small, before Sam shakes his head and downs the rest of his V-8.

And after awhile, after a few more weeks chasing down Dad and the demon, Dean adjusts. So Sam likes coffee now, the froofy shit with cream and sugar and soy milk and _vanilla_ , but whatever. He's still Dean's little brother, still the smart-ass little punk with a heart too big to control and a left hook that needs some work. He still likes his eggs scrambled and his meat medium-well (when he's not forsaking it for rabbit food) and he's still _Sam_ in all the ways that really matter.

Until he isn't anymore. Until he shows up a year after his swan dive into Hell, with a smile and a stilted hug and a story made of swiss cheese. Until he's suddenly eating his eggs over-easy and his meat rare and he's taking his coffee just like Dean -- strong and bitter and too-hot.

It's different this time. Sam's back, but it's different. The face and build and voice are the same, but all the important parts are warped just enough to make Dean feel wrong-footed. Displaced. It's more than just the egg thing and the meat and the coffee. It's in the way Sam speaks, the things he does and doesn't say, the way he is with people, the way he barrels into a case, head first and heart hidden.

Dean tries to adjust. He does. He watches as Sam drinks down his morning coffee without even wincing at the bitter taste or hot splash and thinks back to all those years ago, tries to picture that five-year old face grimacing with disgust. He comes up empty. There's no sign of him at all in the man sitting across the table.

It's somehow worse when he finds out _why_ Sam is how he is now, when he learns of the void lurking behind his brother's eyes.

But after...

After Dean does what is possibly the dumbest thing he's ever done in a long, long, _long_ line of seriously stupid shit, after strapping down the shell of his brother and forcing himself to listen to that familiar voice pleading and begging him to stop, each scream tearing into his heart and ripping him to shreds, every cry bludgeoning his soul. After Death reaches in and fixes his brother and builds a wall with ancient, craggy hands then leaves a chilling warning in his wake, after Dean sits and cries and waits for Sam to wake up, paces and prays and damns himself all over again, shouts for Sam to just snap out of it, to come back, come back to him whole and unbroken and _Sam_ , please come back. Come back.

 _After_ all that...

They sit in a diner in New Jersey. It's one in the morning, but the place is far from empty, a couple booths filled with giggling teenagers, a few other lonely stragglers scattered here and there at the bar. Dean's smothering a pile of pancakes with maple syrup, a sausage link hanging out the corner of his mouth and he glances up to see Sam emptying a tiny container of cream into his coffee. He adds a second one, stirs it all with a spoon and then tentatively raises the cup to his lips.

Dean stops short, fork in one hand and syrup bottle in the other and watches as Sam tests the taste, nose wrinkled and then reaches for a packet of sugar.

And something under his ribs shatters and bleeds, fills him up warm from the inside so bright and so wide that he isn't at all surprised when Sam looks up at him, his brows furrowed.

"What?" he says, lowering the cup to at his face with a napkin.

Dean just laughs, bright with relief as he shakes his head.

"Seriously, what?" Sam asks again.

Dean cuts off a bit of his pancake and, grinning, looks down at Sam's coffee. It's a light brown color, like watery chocolate milk and Dean says, "Hey. Can I have a sip?"

Sam's eyes narrow with suspicion and Dean can't explain how thrilled that makes him.

"You hate my coffee."

"I've never tried it."

"You've never wanted to."

And Dean shrugs, bites the pancake off his fork and says with his mouth still full, "First time for everything."

 **end.**


End file.
